Riley noted the downgrading by tobacco consumers this year following the approval of the sin tax bill which resulted in higher taxes and cigarette prices.

He raised fears about the continued viability of one of PMFTC s factories, which would affect its over 1,000 employees.

PMFTC has lost revenue in favor of Bulacan based cigarette company Mighty which is selling its cigarettes at P1 per stick or P16 per pack.

To stay alive in the highly competitive industry, PMFTC is willing to significantly cut its margins by introducing new Marlboro products with net retail selling prices of below P11.50/pack, Riley said.

With these new products, PMFTC hopes to boost its volumes by an additional 8.9 billion sticks in 2014, which in turn, can help the government collect more revenues from the industry.

Riley, however, pointed out that the company is keeping its original Marlboro products in the premium category and that its flagship brand, Philip Morris, will not sell at lower price points.

If PMFTC s request is granted, the new Marlboro brands will directly compete with other low price brands like Champion, Fortune and Jackpot.

Marlboro s market share decreased by 5.9 points to 15.3 percent while the share of low price Fortune declined by 22.6 points to 27.5 percent.

Under the sin tax law, excise taxes will increase every year over the medium term.

The total Philippine tobacco industry volume of 23 billion units is seen to have decreased by 6.7 percent due to the proliferation of counterfeits, which is eating into its market share.

The Philippines is one of the key markets for Philip Morris as it contributed 22 percent to the company s shipments to Asia last year.

PMI said it expects industry cigarette volumes in the Philippines to contract by 0.4 percentage points.

Snopes.com: the marlboro man died of lung cancer?

Planet of the vapes

Origins When a prominent study was released in the 1950s linking smoking to lung cancer, it presented Philip Morris, the manufacturer of the Marlboro brand of cigarettes, with a dilemma many consumers were concerned enough about the health issues associated with smoking to want to switch to filtered cigarettes (which were perceived as safer), but many men viewed filtered cigarettes and the Marlboro brand in particular, which had originally been marketed as a woman’s product, advertised as being mild and ladylike and featuring a red band around one end to disguise lipstick stains as too feminine. Philip Morris’ response to this issue was to reposition Marlboro as a men’s cigarette promoted via advertisements featuring strong masculine figures, and the rugged ‘Marlboro Man’ cowboy became one of the most prominent advertising icons of the mid twentieth century, propelling Marlboro from a niche brand to the world’s best selling cigarette.

The visibility of the Marlboro Man as an icon has diminished greatly in the U.S. since its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, however, as increasing evidence linking cigarette smoking to a variety of medical ailments has caused the prevalence of smoking to decline and prompted the passage of restrictions limiting the media in which cigarettes could be advertised. Many anti smoking advocates have since cited claims that “the Marlboro Man died of lung cancer” as an apt irony highlighting the dangers of smoking, a literal death foreshadowing the eventual demise of the product the Marlboro Man helped prompted to many millions of consumers.

Any claim about “the” Marlboro Man is somewhat indefinite, though, as many different men have portrayed the rugged looking cowboys featured in Marlboro cigarette advertisements since 1954. An Oklahoma native named Darrell Winfield was the main Marlboro Man from the mid 1970s onwards, but dozens of other men (many of them “real” cowboys) have also modeled for television commercials, magazine and newspaper advertisements, billboards, and other advertising materials promoting Marlboro brand of cigarettes over the last sixty years. A few of those men, all long time smokers, have died of diseases of the lungs

• Wayne McLaren, who posed for some promotional photographs on behalf of Marlboro in 1976, succumbed to lung cancer at age 51 on 22 July 1992. McLaren was a former professional rodeo rider who appeared in small parts in various television series and movies (primarily Westerns) throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and he modeled for print advertising between acting jobs in the mid 1970s, including a Marlboro campaign in 1976. McLaren, who had a pack and a half a day smoking habit, was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 49. Despite chemotherapy, the removal of one lung, and radiation treatments, the cancer eventually spread to his brain and killed him. After learning he had cancer, McLaren embarked on an anti smoking campaign that included the production of a commercial described as follows